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Pot Roast

A beef pot roast simmered in water with flour thickened sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pot Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Wipe and trim the meat, reserving the fat.

  2. Dredge the meat with flour.

  3. Heat the fat in a heavy kettle over high heat.

  4. Once hot, add the meat and sear on all sides.

Braise

  1. Add boiling water to almost cover the meat and boil rapidly for 5 minutes.

  2. Cover and reduce the heat, then simmer until the meat is tender.

  3. Season with salt and pepper 30 minutes before serving.

Thicken and serve

  1. Thicken the sauce by mixing flour with water to make a smooth paste, then add to the pot.

  2. Boil for 2 minutes, season again, and serve with the meat.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef
Browns and sears on the outside, then becomes tender and flavorful as it simmers slowly.
Flour
Coats the meat to promote browning and later thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce.
Fat from the meat
Carries heat for searing and adds rich flavor to the pot.
Onion
Adds aroma and subtle sweetness to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Searing the meat over high heat. The meat must be hot and dry on the surface to brown properly. Browning creates deep flavor through the Maillard reaction, and crowding or moisture can make it steam instead of sear.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, meat, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, meat, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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